James Pearce

James Pearce (14 December 1805-20 December 1862) was a member of the US House of Representatives (W-MD 2) from 4 March 1835 to 3 March 1839 (succeeding Richard Bennett Carmichael and preceding Philip Francis Thomas) and from 4 March 1841 to 3 March 1843 (succeeding Thomas and preceding Francis Brengle), and a US Senator from 4 March 1843 to 20 December 1862 (succeeding John Leeds Kerr and preceding Thomas Holliday Hicks).

Biography
James Pearce was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1805, and his mother died when he was four, while his father moved to Louisiana, leaving Pearce in his grandparents' care. He became a lawyer in Cambridge, Maryland in 1824, and he served in the state legislature before serving in the US House of Representatives from 1835 to 1839 and from 1841 to 1843, and in the US Senate from 1843 to 1862. In 1856, following the collapse of the Whigs, Pearce joined the Democratic Party and supported James Buchanan's nomination for the presidency. During the American Civil War, he did not resign from the Senate, and he died in office in 1862.